Reminders of Him

What's inside (10 sections)

1. Kenna Rowan returns after five years in prison
2. Scotty and the crash that led to his death
3. Diem, her four year old daughter
4. Ledger Ward, the bar owner who was Scotty's best friend
5. Patrick and Grace Landry, the grandparents raising Diem
6. The letters to Scotty
7. Redemption work and proving she can stay
8. Romance versus trust and what it costs them
9. Key takeaways
10. FAQ

I picked up Reminders of Him because a friend told me it made her cry in a grocery parking lot, and that image stayed with me. I had read It Ends with Us and expected another high emotion romance. What surprised me was how quiet this one feels for long stretches. Published by Montlake in 2022, it follows a young mother returning to a town that has already decided who she is. I finished it in two sittings because I needed to know if Kenna would ever get to hold her daughter, and because I kept getting irritated at almost everyone around her.

Kenna is awkward and blunt at first, and Hoover does not smooth that over. She carries raw grief that made me uncomfortable in a useful way. This is a full spoiler retelling, so stop here if you want to go in clean.

Kenna Rowan returns after five years in prison

Kenna Rowan served five years in prison for a tragic mistake that took a life. When the book opens she is getting out and heading straight back to the town where it all went wrong, with little money and one clear goal. She wants to meet her daughter.

Hoover alternates voices between Kenna and Ledger, so we feel her nerves from inside and then see how shaky she looks from outside. Kenna rents a worn apartment she can barely afford and tries to make it passable. She walks a lot. She counts cash. She is on parole and knows one slip could send her back.

What hit me early is how alone she is. No family safety net. No friends waiting. People remember the accident and connect her name to it. She absorbs cold stares without fighting back, which annoyed me until I saw it as a prison habit. Keep your head down. Do the next task. Do not ask for more than you have earned. On her first drive in she stops at a roadside memorial and takes it down, which looks awful until you learn why. Her plan is plain. Get work, keep housing, prove she is stable, then ask to see Diem.

Scotty and the crash that led to his death

Scotty Landry was Kenna's boyfriend and the father of her child. He died in a car crash on a night they were together, with Kenna behind the wheel. That is the version everyone in town repeats. Kenna was driving. Scotty died. She went to prison.

Hoover gives details slowly. At first we only know there was a bad wreck on a dark road, help came too late, Kenna lived and Scotty did not. She pleaded guilty to a serious charge tied to his death and served five years. Inside, she learned she was pregnant.

The fuller account arrives later in her own writing. Both she and Scotty had been drinking and smoking that evening. The car left the road. Kenna got free and tried to find help. She felt for a pulse, found nothing, and believed he was gone. Time passed before workers arrived, and panicked choices piled up.

Kenna believes she failed him in those minutes and that she deserved prison, so she did not fight the case hard. She does not claim innocence now. She claims change. Scotty never turns into a saint here. Through memories we see a kind, funny young man, close to his parents and loyal to his best friend, still young enough to be reckless. His death is the wound the whole town shares, and Kenna is the person they blame.

Diem, her four year old daughter

Diem is four years old when Kenna returns. Born while Kenna was incarcerated, she was placed with Scotty's parents and raised by them ever since. Kenna has never held her or heard her cry through a wall. She knows her through a photo and a few distant facts.

Hoover writes Diem like a real preschooler. She loves snacks and routines and asks blunt questions adults try to dodge. She is fiercely attached to her grandparents and their steady home. She notices sad faces and tries to fix them in that direct small child way.

What hurt me most is how Kenna watches her from far away, in a store or across a yard, then forces herself to leave before anyone notices. Kenna speaks about her in small details. Hair curl. Crayon grip. Laugh when comfortable. There is also hard legal truth. Kenna lost much of her parental standing inside. She cannot claim time by showing up. She needs permission or a court order she cannot afford, and she does not want to frighten Diem by forcing contact. She waits for the adults to allow a calm meeting. That patience costs her plenty. Diem is not a device. She is the center, and every adult choice bends toward her.

Ledger Ward, the bar owner who was Scotty's best friend

Ledger Ward owns a local bar and he was Scotty's best friend. That fact drives the middle of the novel. He grew up with Scotty, grieved him hard, and stayed close to the Landry family after. He lives near them and shows up for Diem as a steady uncle figure who plays ball and remembers what she likes.

When Kenna first walks into his bar she has no idea who he is. They talk easily. He sees sadness and humor in her. She sees a man who is grounded and kind to staff. For a few minutes they are strangers who might like each other. Then she hears his last name and leaves fast.

Ledger is angry when he learns who she is. In his mind she caused Scotty's death. He has sat with grieving parents and held Diem when she asked about her daddy. He warns Kenna off. Hoover keeps him human rather than heroic. He runs his business well. His friend and coworker Roman calls him out when anger takes over. Slowly Ledger starts seeing Kenna as a person rather than a headline. She works hard. She treats strangers decently. She makes no excuses, even when excuses would help. The bind is clear. Help Kenna and the Landrys see betrayal. Date her in secret and risk the trust Diem places in him. His bar becomes the one place Kenna can breathe for an hour, and that kindness grows into more.

Patrick and Grace Landry, the grandparents raising Diem

Patrick and Grace Landry are Scotty's parents and Diem's custodial grandparents. They took in a newborn just after losing their son and have raised her for four years with steady love. Grace keeps routines and packs lunches. Patrick is quieter and protective, fixing things and watching the yard. Their home is warm and orderly. Diem thrives there.

They are also the wall Kenna keeps hitting, and from their side the wall makes sense. They lost their only child suddenly. The driver is back and wants time with the grandchild who links them to their son. They fear instability and confusion for Diem. They fear another loss.

Grace handles contact. Polite in public, firm in private, she dodges Diem's questions about her mother with short answers. She does not hate in a cartoon way. She is scared. Patrick shows anger faster. When he senses Ledger hiding something, he reacts physically, which shows the strain. I found this hard because no one is fully wrong. Kenna deserves a meeting. The Landrys deserve to guard a four year old from disruption. Grief here looks like cruelty from outside, but it is mostly protection through distance and control. Until Patrick and Grace shift, Kenna stays an outsider looking in.

The letters to Scotty

The core device is the letters Kenna writes to Scotty. Started in prison and continued after release, they are never mailed. Part diary, part apology, part parenting journal, they record the pregnancy he never knew about, birthdays missed, job hunts, apartment struggles, days she wants to leave town.

The letters let Kenna speak without performing for parole officers or grandparents. On the page she is funny, angry, tender. She admits jealousy of Grace for getting mornings with Diem. She admits fear she will fail at motherhood. Slowly the letters also fill in the crash night as she recalls details and explains her panic when she ran for help.

They are also how Ledger begins to understand her. He reads the section describing the wreck in plain terms. No speeches. A young woman in shock checking for a pulse, flagging cars, losing time, waking in custody. It does not erase the drinking and driving, but it shifts him from certainty to doubt. Perhaps reckless and also terrified.

Kenna gave birth while in custody and never held Diem after, since the baby was early and needed care before custody moved to the Landrys. That absence explains her flatness now. I liked that the letters hold no magic proof. They are simply her most honest record, and when Grace reads them she starts seeing a grieving young parent instead of a label.

Redemption work and proving she can stay

Without the romance, this is a story about rebuilding after prison when few will hire you. Kenna's redemption work is practical. She applies, gets rejected, and keeps going. With help from a kind grocery worker named Anna, she lands a job bagging groceries. She arrives early, stays late, learns names, carries bags in rain without being asked.

She treats housing the same way. Small apartment, rough building, kept clean. She follows parole rules, saves receipts, attends meetings, avoids alcohol, walks away from provocation. Hoover stacks these short scenes until they form a portrait of someone trying to be dependable.

Around Mother's Day, Diem wants to give flowers to her mother, and Ledger brings a bouquet to Kenna. It is awkward and sweet. Kenna barely knows how to accept kindness. Ledger feels guilty giving it. Small moments like that do more for her than speeches about second chances. She also restores the roadside memorial she had removed. At first she took it down because Scotty disliked such markers. Later she puts it back with care because Grace needs a place to grieve. Work alone opens no doors here. Kenna can be perfect on paper and still be denied. Redemption is daily practice that keeps her ready if forgiveness comes.

Romance versus trust and what it costs them

Kenna and Ledger fall for each other in secret, and secrecy poisons it. They laugh easily and attraction is strong, written with warmth. Yet every date and ride home is shadowed by what Patrick and Grace would feel. He is Diem's trusted adult. She is the outsider. Together they look like collusion, even when it began as compassion.

Ledger tells himself he can help with housing and work without involvement. Then he kisses her. Then he wants every detail of that night. He hides it from the Landrys to spare them, and the hiding becomes its own hurt. Kenna is torn too. Ledger is the first person in town who looks at her without disgust, yet being with him may ruin her chance with Diem. If Grace thinks Kenna used Scotty's best friend to reach her daughter, no letter will fix it. Kenna pushes him away more than once because Diem matters more than her own comfort.

The break comes when Patrick finds out and hits Ledger. Shamed, Kenna packs to leave town to stop causing harm. Desperate, Ledger takes her diary to Grace and Patrick and asks them to read her account of the crash. It is a privacy violation meant kindly, and the book does not clean it up. Kenna is furious.

That act moves Grace. The account shows panic rather than malice, and a mother who never held her baby. Grace returns the diary and says Scotty would have wanted Kenna to meet Diem. Patrick takes longer, slower and quieter. Kenna comes to dinner nervous, brings Ledger for support, first says she is a friend, then while playing tells Diem in simple words she is her mother. Diem takes it as a kind new person who keeps showing up and falls asleep on Kenna. They later restore the memorial together.

Middle chapters drag a bit when the couple rehash hiding versus honesty, and meetings in the same store feel staged. The legal path is thin, resolved more by changed hearts than hearings, which satisfies emotionally more than realistically. Hoover's prose is plain, short sentences and simple dialogue, strong in letters and flatter in bar scenes. Still, the book earns feeling through unglamorous care, shifts and lunches and showing up on time, refusing to make anyone a monster. It is a story about a mother who caused harm and still deserves a try, and a family that shut her out for understandable reasons and must learn to open the door. I closed thinking of Diem asleep on her mother, which is where Hoover wants us to look.

FAQ

Why was Kenna in prison?

Kenna served five years after a car crash that killed her boyfriend Scotty. She returns hoping to meet their daughter Diem.

Who is Ledger Ward?

Ledger runs the bar, was Scotty best friend, and helps raise Diem. He falls for Kenna while hiding the tie from Scotty parents.

Does Kenna get her daughter back right away?

No. Patrick and Grace raise Diem and distrust Kenna. Kenna must earn small visits through work and honesty before anything changes.